Jefferson Davis

This spring will be remembered, by history junkies at least, for the opening of a major new institution, one named after a polarizing leader, devoted to a divisive period, subsidized by taxpayers and stationed in the South. I'm not talking about the presidential library of George W. Bush but the "presidential library" of Jefferson Davis, the one and only chief executive of the Confederate States of America, which will be dedicated Monday in Biloxi, Miss. The Davis library, of course, is not one of the 13 official libraries overseen by the National Archives and Records Administration.

There's been a skirmish or two in the comments on my recent Op-Ed article on the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library in Biloxi, Miss . One commenter -- "Oceaneagle" -- pointed out that some thousands of blacks did serve in the Confederate army. Is that enough to undermine my claim that an emphasis on black Rebels is “nonsense”? I'd like to start my answer by saying a bit more about Richard Forte, the Davis library's chairman of the board and my tour guide during my visit.

November 19, 2000 | ERIC FONER, Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University and the author, most recently, of "The Story of American Freedom."

Of the myriad explanations for the Northern victory in the Civil War, perhaps the most arresting was proposed 40 years ago by the historian David Potter. If the Union and the Confederacy had exchanged presidents, he wrote, the South might well have emerged victorious. Potter's aim was to direct attention from the battlefield to the political arena, where wars are often won and lost.

It hasn't been easy getting people excited about celebrating the 200th birthday of that tall, gaunt, bearded, Kentucky-bred president who was born in a log cabin and went on to lead his people through a bloody civil war. No, not Abraham Lincoln. President Bush himself helped kick off a two-year celebration of the Great Emancipator's Feb. 12, 2009, bicentennial, which will include dozens of events in Kentucky, Illinois, Washington and beyond. It's that other tall, log-cabin-born Kentuckian, Jefferson Davis, whose 200th has turned out to be something of a lost cause.

For the record, a lot of people were vital to the success of my film, among them (as listed in the film's credits) co-director Cedering Fox, director of photographer Daniel Gillman and producers Lora Fox and Nancy Wooler. JEFFERSON DAVIS Venice

Regardless of what the Confederate flag used to mean to those hapless and misguided soldiers of the Confederacy in the Civil War, the meaning is clear to those who fly it today (letters, June 27). This rhetorical catch-all of "states' rights" is, and always has been, a political device to legitimize state-sponsored apartheid and personal bigotry. In this sense, even the memory of those fighting rebels is dishonored. They believed their cause was just. We now know it wasn't and that they were the cannon fodder for a group of elitist anarchists.

In what may have been his final remarks on the Senate floor, Democrat John C. Stennis of Mississippi said Friday that in "thinking over the years that have passed so rapidly" he has concluded that the most needed quality in a lawmaker is the willingness to cooperate. The end of the 100th Congress marks the end of Stennis' Senate career, dating to 1947. He will remain a senator until the 101st Congress convenes in January.

They call the stately 135-year-old home on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico the Mt. Vernon of the Confederate States. It was at Beauvoir (French for beautiful view) that Jefferson Davis, the only president of the Confederacy, spent the last 12 years of his life and wrote his two-volume work, "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government." The 87-acre estate, owned by the Mississippi Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, is a shrine to Davis and the Confederacy.

"Hi, my name is Jefferson. I'll be your waiter tonight . . . and your writer, director, producer and star." It is one of the enduring cliches of Hollywood that everyone who parks cars or waits tables is actually a screenwriter or actor earning rent money while struggling to find their tickets out of there. Well, for nine of the waiters working at Beverly Hills' Yanks restaurant last year, the escape route from Hollywood servitude could be a movie based on the cliche itself.

In response to the June 15 "You Asked About . . ." column about Jeff Davis Pie, several readers sent in a second version of this dessert. An 82-year-old transplanted Southerner concluded her note by saying, "Now that's a pie." W. Welch of Los Angeles told us that the recipe came from "Joy of Cooking" (Bobbs-Merill Co., 1988: $16.95). In the book, authors Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker write, "Without the nuts and spices this becomes Kentucky Pie."

January 21, 1861, was cold, just above freezing, and partly cloudy in Washington, D.C. Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi did not relish his mission. "The saddest day of my life," Davis called it. On this Monday Davis journeyed, as he had so often, from the house on I Street to the Capitol and its Senate chamber.... When Davis entered the Senate chamber that wintry January day, he knew that the Union he held dear was gone.

November 19, 2000 | ERIC FONER, Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University and the author, most recently, of "The Story of American Freedom."

Of the myriad explanations for the Northern victory in the Civil War, perhaps the most arresting was proposed 40 years ago by the historian David Potter. If the Union and the Confederacy had exchanged presidents, he wrote, the South might well have emerged victorious. Potter's aim was to direct attention from the battlefield to the political arena, where wars are often won and lost.

Regardless of what the Confederate flag used to mean to those hapless and misguided soldiers of the Confederacy in the Civil War, the meaning is clear to those who fly it today (letters, June 27). This rhetorical catch-all of "states' rights" is, and always has been, a political device to legitimize state-sponsored apartheid and personal bigotry. In this sense, even the memory of those fighting rebels is dishonored. They believed their cause was just. We now know it wasn't and that they were the cannon fodder for a group of elitist anarchists.

The April 14 Film Clips article on "The Ticket Outta Here" left out two important facts. First, the director of the film throughout principal photography was Cedering Fox. The director of photography and other key crew members confirm this. Jefferson Davis (the subject of the article) supervised the post-production, adding a love scene and second-unit inserts. Second, the final shooting script was a collaboration between Davis, Cedering Fox and co-producer Lora Fox, all of whose names appear on the script registered with the Writers Guild of America, West, 1990.

"Hi, my name is Jefferson. I'll be your waiter tonight . . . and your writer, director, producer and star." It is one of the enduring cliches of Hollywood that everyone who parks cars or waits tables is actually a screenwriter or actor earning rent money while struggling to find their tickets out of there. Well, for nine of the waiters working at Beverly Hills' Yanks restaurant last year, the escape route from Hollywood servitude could be a movie based on the cliche itself.

In response to the June 15 "You Asked About . . ." column about Jeff Davis Pie, several readers sent in a second version of this dessert. An 82-year-old transplanted Southerner concluded her note by saying, "Now that's a pie." W. Welch of Los Angeles told us that the recipe came from "Joy of Cooking" (Bobbs-Merill Co., 1988: $16.95). In the book, authors Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker write, "Without the nuts and spices this becomes Kentucky Pie."

There's been a skirmish or two in the comments on my recent Op-Ed article on the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library in Biloxi, Miss . One commenter -- "Oceaneagle" -- pointed out that some thousands of blacks did serve in the Confederate army. Is that enough to undermine my claim that an emphasis on black Rebels is “nonsense”? I'd like to start my answer by saying a bit more about Richard Forte, the Davis library's chairman of the board and my tour guide during my visit.